Are surety bond markets tightening? In the recent months from the state of the economy the surety industries has under gone dramatic changes. Due to increasing losses from suffering industries such as the car industry and the mortgage industry Surety compaines have to tighten their belts. In the good old days many surety companies would underwrite a urety bond application with no credit check. Requesting more than two years of business financials for a small $10,000 surety bond was unheard of. Well those good old days are over. Surety companies have gone back the traditional underwriting approach. The surety company will now underwrite a $10,000 surety bond like it was a $1,000,000 surety bond. Requesting two to three years worth of business financials resumes on all key personal and running personal and business credit. With these new tougher requirements many surety companies that qualified a year ago cannot qualify this year for the surety bond renewal. Due to surety underwriting changes many teetering clients will now be placed in the subprime surety market when they may have been able to place their surety bond outside of the subprime surety market last year. Claims are on the rise with many business owners defaulting on their surety bond from running out of money and not being able to complete the project they were contracted to perform. This has a very adverse effect on the Surety Bond market since the business of surety is to have a no loss ratio. Just have an increase in losses of 10% can cause a surety company to stop writing one line business. As of this year we lost one surety company one surety decided to stop writing surety bonds and focusing on more profitable lines of business. New business are suffering the most because many surety companies only want to write surety bonds for established companies that have been in business for two years or longer. So how can you still get a surety bond? Here are a few tips to obtain a surety bond without collateral and a reasonable rate Tip one: if you are a new business and you do not have a business financials prepaid draft a start up business financial and create a business plan Tip two: send a resume Surety companies what to see experience Tip three. If your credit is a little shaky or your financials are not up to pair apply with a co-signer. When applying with a co-signer make sure that the cosigner can qualify. Here are some qualifications for co-signers. Clean credit with no collections or delinquencies a 650 credit score or higher owning property and real estate. The real estate does not need to be owned free in clear. I hope this helps obtain a surety bond at a low rate